A question on Kaun Banega Crorepati’s Thursday episode led to a brouhaha on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, leading to the show, the channel and the anchor Amitabh Bachchan being mercilessly trolled by the right-wing.
The questionable question was: “Which ruler was a contemporary of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb? And the options were Maharana Pratap, Rana Sangha, Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Shivaji.
Now, it was seen that the only person in the five names mentioned who did not have a reference to the title was Shivaji, who is referred to as Chattrapati Shivaji even in the history books. It was mayhem soon after as Bachchan, who is not in the best of his health at the moment was also trolled. #Boycott_KBC_SonyTv was trending for over 16 hours by the time we went to press.
“My respect for the show, the anchor has taken a huge dip when I see that the respectable #ChatrapatiShivajiMaharaj is denigrated by being called by first name only; the worst of all Mughal ruler Aurangzeb being ennobled with such respect,” wrote a user.
Bachchan loyalists were quick to defend him, but the hashtag kept trending.
“He is just an anchor on the show and is only supposed to read out what is on screen and he did that. It is not a film script, which he gets in advance. The question directly pops up before him and he merely reads it out. He cannot change or alter what is written on the computer screen. But he was trolled for a mistake that was not his and that upset him a lot mentally as well,” says a source.
Calls were made, and the crisis management cell met to sort out the issue and apologies were sent out as part of the damage control.
The Sony TV handle apologised for the reference, “There was an inaccurate reference to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj during Wednesday’s KBC episode, due to inadvertence. We deeply regret the same and being mindful of the sentiments of our viewers have carried a scroll expressing regret during our episode yesterday.” The channel later also tagged Bachchan so he could view the post.
